Origin
by A Dyslexic Writer
Summary: No one knew where it came from or what it was. For all the world it just looked like an odd soup thermos. But it gave off an energy like nothing the world had seen before, an energy that could think for itself, the origin of what would come to be known as NetNavis. So what will happen once the thermos is opened, and the being behind its power in unleashed upon the world.
1. Chapter 1

"I'm soooo bored!" Lan Hikari complained as he leaned back in his chair, balancing a pencil between his upper lip and the bottom of his nose. The brunet eleven year old wasn't known for his attention span, so such a complaint was nothing new. The pencil feel out and clattered to the desk in front of him, but he still didn't pick it up. He ran a hand past his signature blue head band and through his spiky hair.

"Come on Lan, you know you should just get it over with, then you can do something else." The electronic voice of Megaman said in a tone that was a little too cheerful for Lan's liking as the NetNavi watched him from inside his personal terminal. Megaman had been given to Lan a little will back by his father and was imaged after Lan to a curtain extent, making him the size and build of your average eleven year old. But that was about the extent of it.

While his hair was spiked, it was black, as stuck back more than Lan's own. And Megaman's brought green eyes were a long more instance to look at then Lan's brown. He wore a dark blue jump suit with his symbol on the chest and a blue helmet, sporting the same symbol.

"I know that Megaman, but I was kind of hoping that when I went to the SciLab's building, that some kind of emergency would come up, or that they would have a cool experiment going on, and I would have an excuse to put the homework off a bit longer." Lan admitted to his partner.

"Oh really? And here I thought you came to keep me company." Lan nearly jumped out of his seat when he heard his father's sarcastic voice behind him. Dr. Yuichiro Hikari smiled down at his son with one raised eyebrow behind his glasses.

"D..dad!" Lan shouted before glaring down at his personal terminal at Megaman's grinning face. "Why didn't you tell me he was standing right behind me?" Lan hissed.

"How was I supposed to know you were going to open your big mouth." Megaman said, making excuses as his display looked to the side. A tease to let Lan know that he had known this was going to happen.

"Sorry Lan, but usually everything goes pretty smoothly at SciLabs, and experiments take longer to set up than you realize." Dr. Hikari said as he walked past his son and sat down at his desk, quickly getting to work on some papers that were there. "Most of our time is actually spent doing 'boring' paperwork."

"Ah man." Lan groaned, head falling down to the desk he had been given. "I was hoping something fun would happen."

"Well, I personally hope that everything runs as normal." Dr. Hikari chuckled.

Both Hikari's jumped as an alarm started to blare. "Lan, a dimensional field is forming around SciLabs!" Megaman reported as he received the parameters for the alert. "It's a Darkloid attack!"

"Yes!" Lan shouted before remembering that his father was there. "I mean... I better get right on that. Netpolice stuff, you know."

His father just sighed. "Just be care."

"Will do!" Lan shouted back as he was already halfway out the door.

Dr. Hikari turned back towards his computer and started giving out orders. "Increase security around the synchro-chips, we can't let the Darkloids take them!"

"Sir, the emergence isn't near the synchro-chips. The Darkloid seems to be after something else." One of the security staff responded.

"What? What's it after?" The doctor asked, confused. What could have been so important as to risk breaking into SciLabs for, other than the chips? With a few button clicks he got the security camera images up on his screen and found the culprit. His eyes widened in panic when he saw where it was. "No, not that!"

* * *

"Bubbles, bubbles, bubbles!" The unfortunately named 'Bubbleman' laughed to himself as he wattled with a sense of purpose towards his objective. "Those fools are still probably trying to defend their precious synchro-chips. They have no idea that I am after something far more valuable, bubbles."

The Darkloid was not much to look at. Actually, he was just not much, period. He was short and fat, with huge fish like lips. He had the appearance and mental age of a six year old on a sugar rush and was all around rather dim and dopy. No one took his seriously, not even his own allies, mostly because of his stupid obsession with taking over the world using bubbles of all things. But that was about to change.

Using his powers to smash through a large security door, he made it into the most secret room in SciLabs, one that held something that Bubbleman believed would finally put him on top.

Sitting there, in the center of the room inside of a glass case was what looked like a high tech soap thermos. It was steel grey with bright green lines and a rather normal shape. But even with its odd appearance, Bubbleman was giddy with excitement. He could feel the small waves of energy coming from the thermos.

Smashing the glass with some of his bubble rockets, he took the soup thermos in his hands, giggling uncontrollably as he held it to his cheek. "At last. Once I drink this soup. I will be unstoppable!" Grabbing onto the top, Bubbleman gave it a twist, only to find the thing was stuck. "What!? Oh come on!" The Darkloid shouted as he started to smash the thing against the base of the table it had been placed on. "Open up you stupid..."

The top turned as he accidently hit a bright red button on the side of the thermos. Bubbleman fell backwards onto his rear as the top burst off and a large beam of bright blue light came pouring out of it, completely blinding him.

"Ah! I'm sorry! Please don't hurt me! Bubbles!" Bubbleman said, covering his head. The light started to die away and Bubbleman felt the thermos bump up against his hand. Opening his eyes he lifted it up, looking down into the metal container. It was empty. "What!? No!" He shouted, tears coming to his eyes. "It's not fair. Where is the soup?"

But as he looked up to wipe away his tears, he saw someone standing in front of him. Someone in a black and white jumpsuit with snow white hair and vivid green eyes. "I'm... free." The boy said, he looked like he was around fifteen. His echoing voice sounded shocked as he looked down at his gloved hands.

Bubbleman just stared at him in shock, feeling the same power that had come from the thermos now coming from this strange boy. He was trying to figure out what that meant. Surely he hadn't been inside of the thermos.

But before Bubbleman could figure anything out, he heard another shout from the entrance. "Freeze!" Megaman/Lan shouted as the Cross-Fused boy/navi stood their in front of them, his megabuster held up and pointing at them.

"This just isn't my day, bubbles." Bubbleman whimpered, preparing to get

"Bubbleman, I don't know what you and your friend are doing here, but we are going to send you guys back were you came from." Lan shouted as he looked between Bubbleman and this new Darkloid he had never seen before. His blaster was focused on the new guy, since experience had told him that Bubbleman wasn't that big of a threat. Not to mention the little Darkloid was hiding himself behind the taller one's legs.

The guy seemed to be lost in thought, his eyes wondering around himself as if he was not quiet sure were he was, but at the sound of Lan's voice he stiffened and turned to face him.

"Not going to happen. I ain't going back in that thing, and you must be pretty thick if you think that you can make me on your own." The mystery Darkloid said, his fists clenched tight and a sort of green fire leaking out between his knuckles. He looked looked like a cornered animal, hair standing on end and ready to fight till the end to escape.

"Careful Lan, I'm getting some wierd energy readings from this guy. Something's off about him." Megaman said to his partner.

"Darkchips?" Lan asked quickly, mentally readying his own battlechips to fight with.

"Not sure, but I can't rule it out. So try not to be too cocky." Megaman said in an almost teasing voice.

"Hey, I am never too cocky." Lan replied before letting the Darkloids have it. "Megabuster!"

Bubbleman squealed and covered his head, but the new guy held up his hands and a bright green dome formed up around them. The megabuster shots hit the barrier hard and it shimmered from the impacts, but it didn't break.

With the shield up the white haired navi pointed one hand towards a fire extinguisher on the wall which began to glow green before jumping up out of its box and flying towards Lan, hitting him hard in the arm and knocking the blaster out of the way. Lan had been to focused on aiming to see it coming and the blow had taken him completely by surprise.

Using the opening, the white haired navi dropped his shield and flew straight for Lan and delivered a hard knee to the stomach. Lan was thrown backwards by the blow into a wall fast enough to break through the outer layer of plaster. "Oh wow, that hurt." Lan gasped, glad for the durability that cross-fusion granted him.

"Lan, we can't take enough hit like that. Try some of that battle chip strategy you always brag about instead of just using the blaster." Megaman advised.

"Right. Longsword; Battle Chip; Download!" He shouted, holding out his blaster to the side. The blaster quickly changed shape and a bright green blade came out the top of it. The white haired navi stood his ground, waiting to see what happened next. Lan grinned, taking two quick steps forward before activating his next battle chip. "Area Steal!"

The white haired navi blinked in surprise as Lan's form blurred in a massive increase of speed. The distance between them disappeared as Lan brought the long sword around in a wide slash.

The white haired navi twisted his body, falling backwards so that the blade tip only cut through part of his side before he had slide out of the way. Then he kicked outwards with his right foot, hitting Lan hard in the stomach and sending him flying back a second time. But the kick didn't have the power of the earlier knee and Lan quickly recovered himself, grinning that he had managed to get a solid hit.

"Son of a..." The white haired navi swore, holding the injured side. Lan's grin turned to a look of shock as he lifted his arm. Rather than the bits of light bent by the damaged energy field which kept the navi's cemented in the world, there was bright red blood dripping from the wound. Lan's surprise at seeing the blood left him completely open.

The white haired navi held up a hand towards him and rapidly shot out bright green energy blasts, one after another, not letting up for a second. Lan was smashed against the wall and held there was he was beaten hard.

"Lan, you've got to get out of there! Lan!" Megaman shouted, but Lan couldn't react. The moment the blasts let up, he slide to the ground and his cross-fusion broke, returning him to his normal state and leaving his NetNavi exposed. "Lan! Lan!" Megaman kept shouting as the white haired navi came up closer. "Get away from him!" He barked from the handheld device, though he was in no position to do anything. But the white haired navi just stared at Lan with a confused expression.

"He... he's just a kid." The navi said, shouldn't surprised still having a hand over his injured side.

"You... you beat Megaman!" Bubbleman shouted in amazement. Then he started to laugh loudly. "He's beaten! He's finally going to be out of the way! Now there will be nothing to stop the Darkloids from taking over the world! Bubbles!"

"Huh?" The white haired Darkloid said, looking taken aback. "Take over the world? Oh Please tell me I didn't just... oh man..."

"You've done well minion! I am so glad I released your from that prison the humans were keeping you in! Bubbles! This is great! Shademan will be so pleased with me!" Bubbleman shouted, putting his hands over his stomach and giving his annoying laugh. "But first, we got to make sure that Lan Hikari never comes back." The childish face turned rather dark as he slowly walked towards Lan, as if enjoying the moment of triumph.

"No! Stay away from him! Lan wake up!" Megaman shouted in panic as he was about to watch helplessly as his partner died.

"Hold on there a second." The white haired navi said, grabbing onto Bubbleman's shoulder and pulling him back. "We need to talk about this whole 'taking over the world' thing."

"Huh?" Bubbleman said confused.

"Yeah, I mean, what do you guys plan on doing once you have taken over the world? I mean, ruling the world is a lot of work, between public transport, setting up schools, making trade decisions and organizing labor forces. Just how much of this stuff do you actually have planned out?" The white haired navi asked in an oddly funny manner. "How's your policy on gay marriage?"

"What are you talking about!? I don't care about the gays!"

"You'll find that to be a hard political stance to take in this day in age." The white haired navi said, shaking his head in disapproval. "You'll be lucky if you can go a week without hearing from some activist or other."

"I will flood the world in bubbles and make everyone fear my bubbly wrath!" Bubbleman shouted angrily.

"Then what? That's just taking over the world, what are you going to do once you actually have it?" The white haired navi asked again, crossing his arms.

"I'll... I'll um... I don't know but it will be something evil alright!" Bubbleman shouted, stomping on the ground. "Stop interrupting me!"

"How about we hold off on murdering children until after we figure out what the new world order will actually be like, okay?" Megaman watched the exchange in pure confusion. Things were just not adding up, with the new Darkloid defending him and Lan. And... it was kind of funny.

"Gurr! Stop making fun of me! I will kill Lan Hikari and destroy Megaman!" Bubbleman shouted before turning back to Lan and preparing to attack. But again the white haired navi grabbed him, this time by the tub that was attached to the top of his head. "Hey! Let go of my hoes!"

The white haired navi gave a snort of laughter. "That sounded really dirty, but I can't exactly let you kill the kid. Sorry about this little guy. Ghost Stinger!" Bubbleman gave a yelp of pain as bright green sparks of electricity ran wild over his body. He pained shouts got louder and louder until the attack stopped. "There you go, now take a nice long time... out?"

"Bubbleman; Logging out." The voice over said as the bubble themed Darkloid disappeared into a cloud of particles. The white haired navi watched as the particles gathered together before being sucked into the nearest data port.

He blinked and walked over to the outlet. "A network outlet?" He said, as if surprised to see one. Then a grin passed over his face, never tried to get around through one of there before. His body changed, seeming to become semitransparent before he moving into the outlet, following after Bubbleman.

A few minutes later, the police showed up and Lan was taken to the hospital to be looked after. He would live, but he was out of commission for a while, and now a strange navi was on the loose in the network. Megaman would have to find some help.

* * *

 **Alright, I'll try to continue this for a little bit, since some people seem interested.**


	2. Chapter 2

Roll hummed a bit to herself as she scanned through the data she had been sent to collect for her operator, Maylu. She was walking through the streets of NetCity, just minding her own business. Wasn't hard to do, even though her stylized neon pink jumpsuit and matching helmet with yellow ribbon-like antennas would be considered completely flamboyant in the physical world, in the cyber world such things were the norm. Though Roll herself would insist that her appearance was much cuter than the others.

The data was nothing special, just some video instructions on designing Kimonos. There was a festival coming up, and Maylu was getting existed as usual, and like most twelve year old girls had somehow gotten it into her mind that she would hand make her own outfit to make the day extra special. And like most girls she would learn a harsh lesson about the difficulties in performing such tasks and will probably drop the project after one or two disastrous mistakes.

But it wasn't a Navi's place to actually bring up those kinds of things. Roll would support Maylu as long as she kept trying. This at least wouldn't be as bad as the time she decided that she should enter into a Ms. Japan Pageant. The amount of creepy cyber stocking Roll had to deflect after that incident was just disgusting, and sheltering Maylu from knowing about it was a must.

Scanning over the data, she found no flaws or warning signs that would make her suspicious. Not unsuspected when you are dealing with something so mundane, but it was her job to check. "Well, looks like this little errand is done. I wonder if Megaman managed to get Lan to do his homework yet so that we can all hang out at the battle-dome." Roll said to herself as she compressed the data again. Somehow she doubted that Megaman had managed to do that, he might sometimes be a miracle worker, but there were things that just can't be done. Still it doesn't hurt to hope. She would rather not have to wait until class time the next day to see her best friend and occasional partner in crime fighting. "I wonder if we can all go to the festival together, or if Megaman will be pulled into doing Net-Police work again."

It was while she was pondering about these everyday issues that Roll's sensors picked up something nearby. She stopped in mid step and looked around. "What's that?" She mumbled, her antennas flipping outwards to probe for the energy she had just felt. She managed to find it again. Some strange energy pattern that seemed somewhat familiar. Curiosity almost immediately got the better of her as she moved down into a side alley and towards the signal.

Rounding two corners she found herself in an old cloud memory storage sector that had been shut down a while back for information leaks. It was abandoned since no one wanted to put anything in the unsecured space but no one disconnected the computers from the main network. People rarely disconnected things from the main network.

Roll moved quietly around, following her sensors, trying to figure out where the energy was coming from. If it was something bad, she would have to let the others know as soon as possible, but she didn't have any proof of wrong doing yet.

As she peered into one of the hundreds of empty rooms that the server boasted, she saw a figure crumpled down on the ground in the corner. Caution disappeared as she saw the pained expression on the Navi's face and the way he was holding his side. "Are you alright!?" She cried, running up to him and turning him to lay flat on his back.

Physically speaking he looked like a fourteen year old human, though that was really of no consequence, considering Roll herself was based after her twelve year old operator. Besides, the Navi's white hair made it impossible to mistake him for a human, and he was wearing a pitch black jumpsuit with his data emblem on his chest, an emblem design that Roll herself was unfamiliar with, looking sort of like a messed up D. His right hand was holding at his left side, but he seemed to be unconscious, probably so that his system reboots could take care of the wound.

He was injured and needed help, fast. Roll quickly pulled the hands away so she could get a look at the damage, but to her suppress she found that the wound had been covered in an icy patch, as if they were trying to keep the date from deconstructing with it. Even odder was the red stain on his clothes around the wound, as if he had been bleeding blood, like a human.

"Looks like something cut you up good. Don't worry, I've got you." Roll said, more to herself than the unconscious Navi. The ribbons on her helmet moved around, to angle around the injury. She activated the 'Auto Heal' subroutine, causing medwaves to start to radiate from her antenna's. The pink glow of the energy was focused on the deep wound on the strange Navi's side. The process seemed slower than usual, but soon the edges of the strange wound slowly began to pull together, the ice cracking as the cut closed in. "There we go, good as new." Roll said with a smile as she judged her work. She couldn't help but notices all the weurd energy that was still moving around the guy.

As she watched, the Navi started to wake up. His hand went to were the injury had been, as he started to push himself up. "Huh? Doesn't feel like I have been lying here long enough for that to have healed." He mumbled to himself rubbing his head. He opened his bright green eyes to see Roll leaning over him with a curios expression. His reaction was comical as he gave a short yelping sound, jumped backwards in his sitting position and slammed his head against the wall. "Ouch!" He shouted, rolling onto his side and grabbing his head.

Roll couldn't help breaking out into a stream of giggles and the other Navi's misfortune. Any suspicion she might have had of the strange white haired Navi being a threat had vanished.

"Hey, hasn't anyone told you its not nice to laugh at someone else's pain." He whimpered as he slowly regained control of himself.

"Sorry, are you alright?" She said, offering him a hand to help him get up. The white haired Navi just stared at her, his bright green eyes confused and perhaps a bit flustered at her as she stood over him. "Hey, you in there?"

"Um... yeah, think so." He said, taking her hand and letting her help him up. "I'm just... trying to figure out what exactly is going on."

"You don't know what your doing here, huh? Did your memory units take a hit?" She asked him with a tilt of her head. She put a finger against her cheek. "Well that could be a bit troubling. Do you have any idea how to get back to your operator from here?"

"My what?" The Navi asked, blinking in confusion. Roll stared at him. It hadn't been the confrontational reaction of a solo Navi who believed that Navi's didn't need operators. It was a reaction of pure confusion. He genuinely didn't know what she was talking about.

"Sounds like your memory units are more damaged than I would have thought. Don't worry, I'm sure we can figure something out to help you. My name is Roll, by the way. It's nice to meet you." She said with a friendly smile, sticking out her hand to shake. He probably needed a friend if he didn't have any memories. He still seemed in a daze as he shook her hand. "So, what's your name?"

"I'm D... I'm..." He stammered awkwardly for a second, making Roll worried.

"Don't tell me you don't even remember your name?" She asked sadly.

"No! I just... My name is Phantom." He said with a weak laugh, rubbing the back of his head in an embarrassed manner.

"Phantom huh? Well Phantom, my friends and I will try our best to help you out. We know some people at SciLabs who might be able to help put your memories back together." Roll said with a smile, only barely noticing the panic that crossed his face at the word 'lab'. "Something wrong?"

"Oh, its nothing. I just... am afraid of scientists. That's all. You know, those weird white coats they wear and how they always are staring at their clipboards while they are talking to you." He said, but his joking tone of voice and shifting eyes made Roll figure it was something different.

Roll put her hands on her hips in a stance and expression of a parent lecturing a child and opened her mouth to start scolding the boy when a beeping sound stopped her. A screen appeared in the air next to her and her operator, Maylu's image appeared on it. "Roll, where are you!?" Maylu said her, voice raised.

Roll winced, not thinking she was going to be in trouble for a little detour. "Sorry Maylu, something has come..." Roll started, looking back to were Phantom had been only to find that the white haired Navi was no where to be seen. "Where did he go?" She mumbled, not able to sense him anywhere.

"Forget about the errand! There was an attack on SciLabs, Lan's in the hospital!" Maylu shouted regaining Roll's full attention.

"What!?"

* * *

 **A little bit of a slow start. But that is just because I write in scene sized chucks rather than in entire episode length chapters.**


	3. Chapter 3

"Lan are you alright!" Maylu, Chisao and Troy all shouted as they pushed into the small hospital room were there friend was being treated. The three friends of the young NetSavior had rushed over to the hospital as soon as they heard the news.

Lan's winced at the shouting but gave his best smile. "I'm alright... my head only really hurts when people start shouting." He said to which the three friends each gave a mixture of embarrassment and a sigh of relief. Dr. Hikari gave a small chuckle from his seat next to his son.

"Lan, what happened to you?" Maylu asked as she took up a position next to the head of Lan's bed. The red haired girl gave her friend a quick look over. Lan's head was bandaged and he seemed to have several patches on his arms.

"Two Darkloids attacked SciLabs. One was Bubbleman, but the other one was someone new. He didn't give his name but he managed to get one up on us." Lan reported grudgingly. Iceman and Roll logged into the same lobby room as him which had a scream and speakers for the hospital room.

"I'm not actually so sure he was a DarkLoid." Megaman said crossing his arms. "After Lan passed out, he acted so weird. He talked about random things and tried to talk Bubbleman out of attacking Lan while he was down. He even forced Bubbleman to logout."

"But he had to be a Darkloid? Why else would he have been in SciLab's with Bubbleman in the first place if he wasn't a Darkloid?" Lan asked, shaking his head. "I'll admit he was different, but I still think he was one of them."

"What do you mean he was different?" Troy, the brown haired operator of Iceman, asked.

"Well, whenever I cut him with the cybersword, he started to bleed. As in he bled blood." Lan said shaking his head. Roll froze when she head those words, a Navi that could bleed. "That's what distracted me and got me to lower my guard. I'd never heard of a Navi bleeding before. After that he just pounded me until I lost my Cross-Fusion."

"Navi's shouldn't be able to bleed." Iceman said rubbing his chin in thought. The Eskimo themed Navi was rather childish, but he was still a valued member of the team do to his ice powers.

"He was also giving off a strange energy pattern, not one that I have on records. It wasn't a dark chip, but it wasn't normal." Megaman added. "Not to mention how he found the idea of logging onto the network to be a brand new concept. It was like he was clueless about anything."

"Sword injury... Blood... clueless... oh no." Roll mumbled weakly.

"Hm? What is it Roll?" Maylu asked her Navi.

"This new Darkloid of yours. He wouldn't happen to have white hair and wear a black jumpsuit, would he?" Roll asked weakly, already knowing the answer.

"You've seen him!?" Lan asked in surprise.

"Yeah, I followed an odd energy signature and found a Navi like that. He was injured and it looked like it was bleeding. I helped fix him up and tried to figure out where he had come from, but he seemed to have memory lose or something. When I asked him who his operator was, he just stared at him. He didn't even know what an operator even was. The didn't know where he was and he couldn't even give me his name on first asking. I'm not even sure if Phantom is his name or just one he made up on the spot to hide the fact that he didn't know. I was going to bring him back to SciLabs, but when Maylu called me, he disappeared into thin air." Roll said feeling a bit embarrassed about having repaired the 'bad guy'. "Are you sure he's a Darkloid? He seemed so... flaky? He just made a few dumb jokes about scientists."

"Yeah, that sounds like it was him." Megaman said, nodding his head. "He was making bad jokes at Bubbleman for half the time he was there."

"But if he isn't a Darkloid, then what was he doing at SciLabs?" Maylu asked her Navi.

"Maybe I can shed some light on that." The group all jumped and looked to the door to find a man in his late twenties with short spiky brown hair and wearing wrap around shades.

"Mr. Famous!" They all said as a group.

"It's just Famous..." The guy said with a sigh as he entered the room. "Security cameras show that the unknown Navi didn't come into SciLab's with Bubbleman, he had been there the whole time." Mr. Famous pulled out an silver thermos covered in green lines.

"He was there the whole time? What are you talking about?" Lan asked, not really sure why the agent was holding up a soup container.

"It... it was opened." Dr Hikari said, his voice shocked. "You mean... that Navi had been inside that whole time?"

"That's what he said, but if he had been inside, then why had we never seen him?" Maylu asked, still not getting it. "And why did you bring some shiny soup thermos, did you just have lunch or something?"

"No, Maylu. This is no ordinary soup thermos. And when the doctor said that he was inside, he means that the Navi had been inside of this thermos." Mr Famous reiterated before putting the thermos down on the table near the PET terminals. Megaman and Roll immediately scanned it.

"Oh yeah, this thing is covered in that energy he was using. It's much weaker, but it is still there. He must have been the source and just been in contact with this item for long enough for it to be burned into the metal." Megaman reported after just a second.

"So he was inside of a high tech soup thermos inside of SciLabs? Why?" The childish Chisao asked, he was only around eight years old, but followed the others around almost everywhere.

"That soup thermos has been in SciLabs for over sixty years. It is sample designation #0026, often called the Holy Grail or the Cup of Life. It is perhaps the most important discovery in the history of mankind." Dr. Hikari said seriously.

"That must have been so seriously good soup..." Chisao mumbled.

"There was never any soup." Mr. Famous said with a sigh. He was starting to regret his choose of station in life, but how was he to know at the time that all the most important allies were going to be preteen kids.

"Sounds like it is time for a bit of a history lesson." Dr. Hikari said, as he took the Thermos off of the table and moved it around in his hands.

"Oh..." Lan mumbled weakly. It wasn't like he would be able to get up and get away. He was pretty much stuck there as a captive audience to it.

Noticing his son's less than enthusiastic expression he gave a short smile. "I'm pretty sure you will find this lesson to be interesting. It is the history of the creation of NetNavis." He felt a bit smug as he saw his son's expression visibly change.

"It all started a long time ago. There had been conflicts in the oil rich countries of the Middle East sparking fears in the rest of the world when it caused an energy crisis. Each of the world powers at the time throw themselves into trying to find a new way of gaining sustainable energy, so that they wouldn't have to be dependant on the politically unstable region. That is when Japan found this device." Dr. Hikari said holding up the empty thermos. "It was found in a river outflow pipe, as if someone had just thrown it away. We still don't know where it came from, but it is said, that at the time it had been giving off a strange green glow. So scientists were called in to take a look at it."

"As your Navis have already noticed, it gives off an unusual energy. Not only that, it never stopped giving off this energy. So it wasn't long before they tried to experiment with the energy coming from the device. Seeing if they could use it to power there machines. The first trial was down with a computer of the time, which required a lot more power and room than they did today. But with this new energy source, they only needed a small piece of the whole to power the entire thing."

"At first, everything seemed to be fine as the computer ran perfectly. But soon after the energy was introduced, strange glitches started to accrue. The scientist ran more and more experiments until they noticed something; there was no pattern. The energy could not be relied upon to do the same thing each and every time. It wasn't restricted from going from the highest energy state to the lowest anymore. Not only that, but as time passed, it seemed as if the power had a will of its own, trying to find a way out of the closed system around it. It destroyed the software, ruined the safety switches, and with each day it started to show more and more signs of true intelligence. It had complete control of the system it had been inserted into and the scientists could do nothing but watch it. Eventually it escaped the computer, stole the lead scientist's car, driving it into a brick wall. This was histories first experience with what we now call viruses."

"The scientists wanted to just give up. It was clearly outside of there control and they were convinced that the power was actively trying to destroy them. Not only that, but Nuclear power had already kicked off and the energy scare had passed."

"But, then my own grandfather came into the project. People at the time thought he was crazy since rather than talking about the energy in the terms of an electical engineer, he had researched it from the point of view of a psychologist. Tell me, do any of you know the term 'Tabula Rasa'?"

"Uhhh..." The kids went, having never heard of it before.

"Tabula Rasa is a Latin term meaning blank slate. It is supposed to mean that babies are born without any memories or preprograming." Roll said, having looked it up real quick to spare Maylu the awkwardness.

"Correct. My grandfather theorized, that the energy had not been trying to destroy them, but that it simply and no idea what it was doing, or what was right and what was wrong. It didn't have any senses so its entire world was based around the idea of what could and couldn't be done. So it did absolutely everything it could do trying to find its limits without any idea of the harm it was causing."

"It was hard, but eventually he managed to win enough of the remaining scientists over to give the experiment another try. He created a computer that would model a human mind and connected it with various interment to measure the surrounding world. Then they let a brand new piece of the energy enter the system. Running it through the program which was teaching the energy about the world around it."

"They spent days, talking to the program, showing it images and explaining to it what was going on, in the hopes that like a newborn child, it would start to understand. The project was successful beyond the scientists wildest dreams."

"Not only did the program start to gain an understanding of what it should and shouldn't do inside of the system, but it learned human speech. It started to talk to the scientists, then when they hooked up a monitor to the machine, the shape it used to identify itself was human, one of a small girl with white hair. It had decided on a gender for itself, declaring itself to be female. She had even taken a name; Athena Hikari."

"Wait, she name herself a Hikari?" Megaman said in surprise.

"Yes, by the rules of familiar relations, my grandfather had created her, so he was her father. Not only that, her first name came from an old legend. Athena was the Greek Goddess of Knowledge and was said to have been born from her father's mind." Hikari said, with a smile. "Athena was the very first Navi to ever exist, and would later be the one to set up the modern method for creation of more of her kind. So this thermos was the origin of all NetNavi technology. Most text books say that the scientists created the first NetNavi on purpose. But it would be more accurate to say that Athena created herself. And the thermos, or Holy Grail, and everything to do with it was made into a national secret."

"Why didn't anyone ever open the thermos up before now?" Maylu asked curiously. "I mean, if you've had it for all this time."

"We were always scared to." Mr. Famous said crossing his arms. "The first energy gather had turned into a virus because of lack of preprogramming causing it to go berserk. And that was just a small piece. We believed that inside of the Thermos was Virus Beast so powerful as to make the Gospel look like a puppy."

"Oh great. Whenever we first saw this new Navi, Lan had said 'we are going to send you guys back where you came from'. He must have thought we were going to lock him back away in the thermos." Megaman said running through his memory files. "So the entire thing had been one big misunderstanding."

"So I got my butt blasted for nothing." Lan moaned weakly, though it seemed no one was listening to him.

"So Phantom is from before the creation of the first Navi, then what is he? Where did he come from?" Roll asked thinking back to the white haired Navi. It was no wonder he didn't understand anything.

"Good questions, but we have no idea. He himself might know though." Dr. Hikari answered.

"Hey, if Athena was the one that created the NetNavi programs, and she was created from this guy... does that make Phantom the grandfather of all Navis?" Chisao asked. They all just stared at the kid for a few seconds. "What?"

The awkward silence in the room was cut off when Mr. Famous's phone began to ring. "Famous." He said as he answered the call. "Oh no... Darkloids are attacking the traffic control grid!"

"You hear that Megaman, duty calls." Lan said trying to push himself out of bed, only to collapse back into it.

"Lan, you are in no condition to go anywhere." Megaman said seriously.

"But what about the Darkloids!" He shouted in response.

"Don't worry Lan, well handle this one. Come on Roll." Maylu said.

"You too, Iceman." Troy added as the two grabbed their PETs and started out the door.

"Wait come back!" Lan shouted but he couldn't do anything to stop them.

"Guys its too dangerous!" Megaman added, not that they heard him either.

"Darn it, I can't believe we had to just sit here. Megaman, we have to do something... Megaman?" Lan said, looking over to were his PET had been laying only to find it gone, and that Chisao was also missing from the room. "Oh no..."

* * *

 **Getting a lot of back story out of the way.**


	4. Chapter 4

"Maylu, the roads might not be safe for long. I'm charting the safest route to the central traffic systems right now. head towards the inter-city cycling path entrance, three blocks to your right." Roll told her operator as she headed off with Troy on their scouters.

"Can we really afford to be making detours like that?" Troy asked, though they were already starting to make their way onto the suggested path.

"We won't do anyone any good if you two get pancaked by cars." Iceman said. "Besides, with traffic taken into account, this is going to be the faster route."

"Mr. Famous is calling for a public alert to help clear the streets, but there want be enough time. We have to hurry. Even if we can't stop the Darkloids, we can still hold them until the streets are cleared if we get their first, so get a move on." Maylu said, pushing herself to go faster.

"Be careful, we don't exactly have as much experience as Lan and Mega..." Roll started but then stopped.

"Roll, something the matter?" Maylu asked, wondering why her Navi had gone silent.

"It's nothing... just a glitch in my sensors. Keep going, the path you want to take is on your left." Roll said quickly. There hadn't been a glitch, she had picked up the same type of energy signal she had gotten from Phantom, but at the moment, there was no time to pursue the strange Navi. They needed to keep there heads in the game.

So Maylu didn't even notice as she and Troy speed through the park on the bikeway, going straight past a black haired teenage boy who was standing by some vending machines. Nor did she see him glance about before sticking his arm into the vending machine, his arm passing straight through, as if one or the other was just a hologram before he pulled out some of the junk food.

He pulled the package open and wolved the thing down with all the manner of a starving man, before going for some more. "Steal year old junk food from those vending machines nobody ever uses." He mumbled after eating nearly a dozen packages of sugar donuts. He looked up at the sky with sad blue eyes. "How the mighty have fallen."

No one even noticed as he started to walk away, his form seeming to shimmer slightly before vanishing all together.

* * *

"Get ready boys! They've broken though the second fire wall!" The lead Security Navi to the control system to the city's traffic lights shouted as he and six other Navi's took positions behind a barricade facing the entrance to their sector. Each of them was a copy of the same standard security software, dark green bodies and helmets with side arm blasters at their waists. "Remember, lives are on the line here! This is not a drill!"

They were to be the final line of defense. The fire walls had been destroyed and if the Darkloids and their virus army got past them and to the control tower behind them, it would all be over.

The control system's sector looked like a massive empty room the size of two standard football fields put together, with just the massive glowing orange tower and the sizable barricade to fill it.

"In all my cycles, I have never seen anything get past the first two firewalls." The lead Security Navi mumbled to himself, shaking slightly in excitement. "This is it, the day I was programmed for."

"Sir, we still have yet to receive an E.T.A. from our requested reinforcements." A second Navi commented as he checked one of the two mounted energy turret's data feed one last time, a sign of fear, since their was no time to fix it if something had been wrong.

"Doesn't matter, we will hold this line as long as we need to. Don't let a single one of these glitches get past you. We just need to last until the NetPolice arrive." The leader said, lifting out from behind the barricade a large shoulder cannon. The gateway started to show signs of forced activation. "Here they come!"

The hole in the fair wall of the room exploded into bright light and the viruses started to pour into the room. Nearly a dozen different types of virus came out, flying and land based alike. They must have numbers in the hundreds.

The Navi's opened fire, splitting their attention and trying their best to hold off the approaching army. The energy turrets focused on the flying viruses while the other five keep their attention on the groundlings. Tossing data grenade whenever they saws groups clumping together, otherwise they used their size arms to pick off individual targets.

The leader of the Security Navi's started to laugh out loud as he shot a cannon shot at the opening in the wall, taking out a dozen viruses that were trying to push their way into the central control room, kicking up dust around the hole. "Is this all you got! Come on! You viruses don't stand a chance against a real Navi!"

"Neon Light!"

The Security Navi's laughter was cut short as a sphere of bright yellow light flew out of the smoke and struck him straight in the chest, blasting him off of his feet and heavily damaging his data. "Sir!" His second in command shouted in shock.

"'A real Navi?' That was rather amusing, coming from a piece of mass produced processes." Said Flashman that slowly walked out of the smoke. He was tall, in a dark blue jumpsuit with a helmet that covered his entire head. The top of the helmet looked a bit like a street lamp, and was giving off a light glow as he moved forward. He lifted up hands covered in blade like gantlets, balls of yellow light flouting over them.

"Geez, they think that this will slow me down. How embarrassing." Burnman added. Burnman looked like a small man who was located someone inside of a massive suit of bright orange armor that was modeled after a racecar. Flame's sputtered from exhaust ports on his head and hands as he grinned madly at the barricade. "I'm in a hurry so I'll delete you all quickly!" He laughed, jets of blue fire erupting from his body.

The remaining security Navi's silently muttered the same word, pure hopelessness in their voices.

"Darkloids."

* * *

Phantom sat on top of a tower in the middle of the city, looking out onto the distance as the noise of the city rang out far bellow him. A shiver went up his spin as he heard the drumming of the engines of a low flying airplane. "Oh man... jumpy aren't you." He said, rubbing down the goose-bumps on his arms. "Guess I am still not used to there being noise again." He said, trying to laugh at it.

He leaned forward and bared his face in his hands. "You're talking to yourself now? Not a good sign at all." He said, his voice breaking a little. He took several breathes, trying to regain control of himself. He couldn't have a panic attack. Well... he could... but he shouldn't let himself have one. If watching his older sister during her OCD moments had taught him anything, it was that one panic attack could totally wreck your week. He looked up again after having regained his steady breathing.

"On the surface, not much has changed. But I'm pretty sure there wasn't a world on the Internet when I left. Wonder what's happened to the world while I was gone. And how did I end up in Asia?" He said, looking down at a curry shop sign. He couldn't read it, but he was pretty sure it was a curry shop from the picture on the sign.

He flopped onto his back and looked up at the sky though his mop of snow white hair. He wished it was night time. The stars had always comforted him while his nerves were all jumbled up. "I suppose a better question would be, what am I going to do now? Don't exactly relish the idea of heading home, and the GZ isn't a happy go luckily place either. Not that this spot seems any better." He gave a pitiful chuckle. "I'm finally let back out into the world, and I haven't got a clue where to go."

His mind wondered back to the things he had seen that day, the child who had been playing superhero, that fat bubble themed guy, and the world inside the Internet. He couldn't make sense of any of it. At some moments, he wondered if he had really gotten out, or if this was all just a dream and he was still in the thermos. Wouldn't be the first time, though this all felt more real. At least the pain in his side felt real.

Whatever Roll had done really had helped the healing process along, but their was still a bit of pain left over. Nothing that made it so he couldn't function, but enough to assure him that the world around him was real enough. He was actually thankful for the pain for that.

The already noisy streets below became all the more noisy as car horns sounded and the unmistakable sound to two vehicles hitting each other at high speeds reached Phantom's ears. The teen sat up so fast that he actually shot straight off the side of the roof, though rather than falling to his death, he simply flouted there above the city, as if gravity had yet to notice him.

The sound repeated itself again and again, some closer, some further away.

As he looked down at the city below, Phantom saw a giant mess. All the traffic lights had turned green and people had sped straight into each other at nearly every intersection.

As he watched, a large truck crashed into the side of a smaller car right below him. The driver's seat door of the car was crushed and the car skidded a few feet from the impact, but then it started to move again. The car continued to more forward, the driver having been knocked unconscious with his foot on the gas. The vehicle hit the curb and jumped up onto it, speeding towards a few pedestrian. The three people on foot, two adult women and a young boy, were all to shocked to move out of the way.

But before the car could hit them, Phantom had moved in between them. He reached out and grabbed onto the front of the car, digging in his heels and focusing his considerable strength into bringing the thing to a stop before anyone else was hurt. A bright green glow covering his body from his unique energy.

He groaned a bit with the exertion, as the vehicle's wheels continued to spin. Finally, he reached into the car, his hand passing right through the hood and pulling the car battery out. The car gave a few small gasps before stopping all together.

"Oh man, that hurt." Phantom mumbled, shaking himself a bit. "Guess I'm not back up to full strength yet."

"So cool..." Phantom turned his head to see the small child looking up at him with big eyes. He smiled back at the kid, before the sound of the chaos in the city reclaimed his attention.

The damage in the last few seconds was out of control, and with all this madness, emergency response teams would have a huge problem on their hands.

Phantom himself went to the driver's seat, pulling the man out of the car by having him pass through the metal door. The man was badly beaten up, but as Phantom removed a glove and put two fingers to the man's neck, he could still find a pulse.

"This needs to stop." He said glancing up at the traffic lights. Something must have gone wrong with them, big time. He found himself wondering if the lights themselves were connected to the network world that he saw. If that was the cause, them maybe he could stop this if he want there too. "Not even back for one day and already back in the saddle. The world really hasn't changed much." He said to himself as he moved towards one of the street lights, turning invisible as he passed into the data port and entered the net.


End file.
